


Dublin

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, Post War, Romance, The Quidditch Pitch: Eternity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-05
Updated: 2005-10-05
Packaged: 2018-10-27 13:27:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10809933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: Following the final battle with Voldemort, Harry and Ron go to Dublin by way of a retreat as Harry deals with the loss of his friends, home and most of all, his purpose in life. Harry-Ron; Post-War.





	Dublin

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

The easiest thing to do was kill Lord Voldemort. It took him almost eight years, with every ounce of power and magic and strength in his body, but it had been easy. At least, easier than facing the world Voldemort left behind. Easier than trying to find his place and purpose. Easier than attending the funerals for those who had died on the side of good. Easier than testifying in front of hundreds against those who had fought on the side of evil.

It was all easier than completing his goal in life at the age of eighteen, and discovering that there really wasn’t a good and evil, just the stronger, the braver, the more powerful, and the united. It hadn’t been the hatred and violence that had killed Voldemort; it had been the deception, betrayal, and division that had killed him. It was on this technicality that Harry was able to become the savior of the wizarding world. Again.

It ended with a scream, a crater in the ground, and half of the Order and Death Eaters dead. It ended with the outline of Ron’s fingers permanently imprinted on Harry’s forearm and Hermione clinging to his other side, frozen in that scream. It had ended with a waver of Harry’s wand, a shake of his knees, and the stillness of his heart.

It had ended.

A week later, he was packing up what little belongings he had into the too-small suitcase waiting on Ron’s bed. He kept touching the bright orange bedspread, fingering the little holes here and there and smoothing out the wrinkles. There were summer nights, under this cover, where he’d curled up crying, refusing to tell Ron about the nightmares he’d had this time. There were other nights when he’d just acted scared in order to sleep on this bed, with that person, and not on the squishy cot Molly always insisted on setting up for him.

He knew he was coming back - at least, that’s what he’d been told - but it felt like closure. It felt like saying goodbye.

“It’s for the best that you take a break and find some time to relax. To be eighteen,” Remus was saying with a delicate grace that was completely lost on Harry. “Ron will be sure you enjoy yourself, and Dublin’s close enough that the Ministry can also be sure you’ll be safe.”

Remus didn’t add the “for now” at the end, and Harry was grateful for that, even if he heard it in his own head.

He sat on the edge of the bed, eyes still on the yellow stitching of the duvet, fingertips tracing the sewn curves. “It’s what a lot of fresh graduates do,” Remus went on, as if they both didn’t know that Harry was running away from The Boy Who Lived and The Boy We’d Like Dead and the tragic nervous breakdown both titles were near to giving him. “You know, trips and the like. Sirius and I went all over France the summer after we graduated,” Remus said. Harry looked up, watching the pain of that mistake - the mistake of mentioning Sirius - settle over Remus’s face, and feeling a familiar guilt he thought he’d put to rest a long time ago.

“Where’s my billfold?” Harry asked, snapping his suitcase closed and pretending as though Remus hadn’t said a word.

\---

“Reckon we could have gone somewhere a bit more, ehm, exotic, don’t you?” Ron said aloud as he struggled with the wheels on his suitcase, pulling it this way and that like an unruly child. Harry watched him and only half-listened, fingering the pendant hanging on a chain about his neck and snapping his chewing gum - the teeth-whitening sort that Hermione’s parents had given him a few days earlier in St. Mungo’s. It was minty and strong, and Harry couldn’t smell anything else when chewing it.

“What for?” he finally asked, his tone almost serious. He hadn’t really wanted to see Los Angeles or Berlin or New York City anyway. All those big cities with loads of people and plenty of places for your enemy to hide.

There is no enemy now, but Harry will always think there is.

“I mean to say,” Harry picked up his thought, following Ron out of the closed off Apparation area of Dublin’s airport, “we’ve got free room and board here, if we want it.”

“We aren’t _that_ poor,” Ron pointed out, although he didn’t seem too upset about their location; one was just raised to complain about these sort of things, perhaps. “And it’s only free if you don’t count having to listen to Dean and Seamus go at it all hours of the night in the next room.”

Harry stopped walking, eyebrows raised, expression plainly saying “or in the next bed.”

Ron flushed a little, for the sake of acting as though the thought left him uncomfortable, and relented. “Okay, so it wouldn’t be the first time. But still.”

Harry shrugged and headed toward customs, Ron followed with his misbehaving carry-all in one hand and Frommer’s Pocketguide to Dublin in the other.

\---

“I want to visit Ha’Penny Bridge,” Harry said, voice raising a little to make it into the bathroom.

“Okay.” Ron snapped off the light in the bathroom and absently adjusted the elastic waistband of his boxers as he came out. He tossed his tube of toothpaste on his own bed before sitting on the corner of Harry’s, peering curiously over the paper, muggle money and a dozen tourist booklets scattered over the bed and Harry’s lap. “Where else?”

“Er,” and Harry was flipping through the nearest pamphlet, eyebrows knitted together as he read, his glasses forgotten on the nightstand. “The docks?”

“Fish and chips places near those. Sounds good,” Ron replied, plucking the glossy pages from Harry’s fingers. “We’ve got to visit Dean and Seamus, too; they’ve only just settled down, I reckon they’ll want company that isn’t Seamus’s Mum. And I’ve got Hermione’s gift for them to deliver.”

Harry thought about the last time he’d seen Dean and Seamus: Dean had a cut the length of Harry’s wand across his back, and Seamus was hanging on, casting curses through the tears. Ron told Harry that Seamus had come to visit him in the hospital the day after the battle, but Harry didn’t remember. Then again, he couldn’t remember if he’d bothered to sleep the night before either.

“How is Dean?” he asked instead, wishing his sight would stop blurring.

“Up and about. His last letter said he was still a bit sore, but they’ve got a right nice flat, and Shay’s taking great care of him. Of course,” Ron added, as if it was expected that Seamus would do nothing less. “He said they’re looking forward to seeing us.”

“When did you write them?”

“Four days ago, when Remus told me to pack because I was taking you away,” Ron said with exaggerated whimsy, grinning. Harry rolled his eyes. “Knight in shining armor, that’s what you are, eh?”

“Damn right,” Ron replied, his voice cracking and the corners of his smile fading. Then he squeezed Harry’s shoulder and said, “I’m going to sleep.”

\---

“Accepted as the symbol of Dublin, the Ha’Penny Bridge was opened in 1816, and is officially called the Wellington Bridge. The bridge acquired its unofficial nickname from the toll paid to cross the River Liffey - one old, half penny,” Ron read from the booklet as they walked toward the ironwork structure. “Says here that this is the only pedestrian bridge in Dublin.”

“Mmm,” Harry replied, climbing up the low, long steps, eyes cast out over the sparkling, dull brown of the river. He was quickly learning that Dublin was not dirty in the same way that London was, nor beautiful in the way Paris probably was, nor warm and dry like some pasted together American city. Everything about the trees and the constantly wet streets and the way people held their heads was melancholy. There was an ache to architecture and sadness to the wind and a green-hue in all the windows. Smoke in the alleyways, crisp sheets in the hostel, and coffee spiked with things that made Harry’s tongue burn.

He liked Dublin.

“Makes you half-wonder what we did to them all these years, huh?” Ron said quietly, his eyes on the river as well, unfocused.

“Mmm,” Harry said again, eloquence - what little he had - lost, leaning on the curled, white iron and rubbing the flat of his thumb along the defined edge of the pendant still hanging on the dingy silver chain around his neck. The pewter it was made of was cold; it was always cold, and with that thought, he dropped his hand.

Ron’s elbow pressed against the side of Harry’s forearm as he turned to lean next to him, eyes dropping down to stare at the way one of Harry’s hands cupped the other, palms up and open. “I look at the people walking about sometimes, and wonder how it is they don’t know that you’ve done all that you have.”

Harry felt every muscle in his body tense. “They’re Muggles, Ron, of course they don’t know.”

“And you like it that way, I know,” Ron agreed, “but I would know, just to look at you, that there is something much bigger than myself or this bridge or this city on your mind.”

Green shifted, like wind through leaves, to settle on Ron, and Harry suddenly felt sick. He was a bad actor, and always had been.

“I would know,” Ron said again, tossing a coin from his pocket into the river and walking away.

\---

Dublin strayed at night, when the pubs got busy, smelly and noisy. The calm was still there, but it was louder and brighter - as loud and bright as calms got, anyway. The air was acrid with cigarette smoke and slurred drinking songs, the sort of things that were almost like home, but not quite. Ron thought it was the brogues, but Harry thought it was the way eyes followed them all the way to the booth in the back, where Dean and Seamus were seated. They were on the same side, of course, with Seamus laughing in Dean’s ear.

Seamus’s arm should have looked awkward resting on Dean’s shoulders; Dean was a good few inches taller, a little broader in the torso, and not a sloucher like Seamus. But it didn’t, it looked perfectly normal and comfortable.

Harry wished it didn’t look so right to him.

“Hullo, Finnigan,” Ron said with that sloppy smile of his, waiting for Harry to slide in toward the window before sitting down himself. “Still loud, I see.”

“Aye, and still ugly, I see,” Seamus retorted, taking a quick sip of his pint and leaning back to scrutinize them, eyes softening a little when landing on Harry. “Actually, you both look quite fit.”

“Cheers, mate.”

\---

“National antiquities museum.”

“What?” Harry lifted his head off the pillow slowly, wincing at the way the light from the lamp spun when he did so.

“They have... oh--” Ron cut himself off, blinking at the lamp near Harry’s bed, obviously having the same problem. “They have a... ehm. Damn, I’ve forgotten.”

“Museum, Ron.”

“Right, a museum of national importance. Or sommat,” Ron added, wobbling precariously as he tried to toe his shoes off and maintain his balance at the same time.

“Sod it, you want to go to a museum?” Harry asked, bewildered that this didn’t make sense when he knew it ought to. The light lurched again and he felt his stomach clench. Too much Guinness. Way too much.

“I was asking.” Ron swayed again, caught himself, stumbled, and landed on Harry’s bed rather than his own, kneeing Harry’s calf.

“Ow, watch it.”

“Sorry. What do you say?”

“I say,” Harry muttered, arms and fingers stretching to reach the lamp, to shut off the cartwheeling light, “that we’ll be lucky if we can see straight tomorrow. Or that daylight doesn’t give us migraines. What was in that shite?”

“Haven’t you had Guinness before?” Ron said into Harry’s pillow, and Harry shook his head. “No, I had fire whiskey once, but I didn’t know stout was that strong...”

“It is when you’ve had as much as we did, mate,” giggled the voice near his ear. A little shudder ran down Harry’s back and he swatted at Ron’s nose. Not a good idea. “Cut that out.”

“Cut what out?”

“That. You’re talking right in my ear, I’ll go deaf.”

“They’ve got a National Gallery of Art as well, but that sounds even more dull, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t think anything can sound more dull than historical antiquities, Ron.”

“There’s always Christ Church.”

“Did you notice how different Dean and Seamus are?” Harry asked suddenly, turning his head to look at Ron, their noses not even an inch apart.

“No,” Ron’s eyes clouded in thought and recollection. “They were different?”

“Yeah,” Harry frowned, head rolling back again, staring up at the ceiling.

“Like how?”

“Like... happy.” Harry’s arms slid up to cross each other, hugging himself and suddenly aching for one of those Warming Charms Ron’s mum always used to put on their beds during cold or wet nights.

“Of course they’re happy. Why wouldn’t they be?” There was a pause; when Ron spoke again, it was softer, almost placating, and Harry really hated that tone. Everyone seemed to use it on him lately.

“The war’s over, and they’ve got each other. A nice flat, peacetime, and love. That’s what we’d all like, don’t you think?”

The knot pulled itself just a bit tighter and Harry sat up, rubbing at the strange wetness in his eyes and knocking his glasses askew. “No, that’s not what I want.”

Ron sat up too, his shadow sinking across the opposite wall and swallowing Harry’s. Harry’s fingers slid into the crease of his elbows, pressing on the muscle and joint there until he could feel the pain start to coil and radiate up his arm. “That’s not what I want, ever.”

The moonlight was coming in the through the window, shining white over the dark red of Ron’s hair, and making his face impossible to see.

“What do you want then, Harry? What’s left?”

\---

Harry woke up with his left eye twitching and his mouth tasting like a nasty mix of lemon and vinegar. He swung his feet over the bed and rode the dizzy wave of nausea that sitting up brought. Ron was gone, the space next to Harry empty and rumpled, but he’d been kind enough to close the blinds on the window.

After some wobbly walking and ramming his thigh into the corner of the night stand, Harry straightened his glasses and headed to the bathroom, recognizing the sounds of running water inside. A shower, then. Unfortunately for Ron, Harry’s piss couldn’t wait.

“Just using the loo,” he mumbled thickly as he slipped into the humid steam, but Ron didn’t seem to hear him, or at least didn’t acknowledge him. Undaunted, Harry went about his business, squinting his eyes to keep aim and swearing mentally to never drink that much again. He was washing his hands when Ron came out, dripping wet, blinking irritably (headache as well, then), and reaching around Harry to grab his towel. He wrapped it around his middle and tucked the corner in, eyes meeting Harry’s in the mirror and grabbing his toothbrush.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Like shite,” said Harry, picking up his own toothbrush and softening the bristles with water before taking the tube of paste from Ron.

“Good, then it did its job, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, guess so.” Harry started to brush his teeth, head still buzzing with pain, which didn’t get any better when Ron made a face that caused him to laugh. “Stop it, that hurts.”

“What, smiling?”

“Laughing.”

“Yeah, and not just when you’re hungover.” Ron spat into the sink. So did Harry.

“What does that mean?”

“You never laugh anymore, that’s what it means. Or smile.” He leaned over to rinse his mouth out, wet strands flopping into his eyes, freckled back exposed to Harry, hip touching hip. Before Harry could think of anything to say, he felt Ron’s wet skin under his palm, the muscle straining and moving as Ron straightened, eyes meeting his.

“I’m sorry,” Harry mumbled, whether about the lack of laughter or the touching he wasn’t sure. Ron didn’t look sure either, but neither of them moved. Trapped. Fuck.

“I...” but it got lost; Harry’s throat knew better. “Uhm.”

The first time their lips met it was uncoordinated and a little left of center. Ron’s toothbrush clattered against the porcelain of the sink when he dropped it; Harry thought that must be a bad sign and tried to pull away, but Ron’s hands were already holding his face, his long fingers cool and damp on the flush of Harry’s cheeks. The second time was better, open and intense, only breaking for air, only breaking to make the third kiss, light, sticky and reluctant.

Ron’s head bowed, forehead touching Harry’s, eyes down, staring at Harry’s neck and collar and the dirty silver chain about his neck, with the little pendant bearing the Longbottom coat of arms on it.

“I thought you said you didn’t want love.”

There was that strange, evil wetness in Harry’s eyes again, and he broke away, breathing heavy, clutching his chest. “I don’t.”

Ron’s face fell. “Then...”

“Then... you should get dressed, so we can go. To the museum.”

“... Right.”

That’s all that Ron said. Not “but I love you,” not “I’m sorry,” not “please,” not “I hate you.” All those things, any of those things, would have been something to show Harry that he was not alone in the fight, and that maybe it would be over soon.

But all Ron said was “right,” and shut the door behind him.

\---

They walked around the docks licking greasy fingers, tossing chips and bits of fish at birds every so often. Harry wondered how many had already walked this area, how many footsteps they were repeating. He thought the docks should smell, but they didn’t. There were red, yellow, white and blue boats everywhere they looked, there were masts blocking out the sun and sky, and the water was calm and dark green. It was cold, and they didn’t talk.

Harry huddled into his jacket, wishing he’d had the sense to bring a thicker one, wishing he hadn’t given more than half his chips to the birds, wishing he hadn’t kissed his best mate. Silence was nastier than shouting, the Dursleys had taught him that much. To be ignored, to be forgotten, to be treated as though you didn’t exist. That was worse that anything, even if you were The Boy Who Lived And Hated Attention.

“Are you all right?” Ron asked on their way back, as they settled on a bench near the water to rest and watch. Harry looked at him as though he were mad, and Ron sighed. “You look cold, is what I meant.”

“Oh. I am.” Not all right.

“Here.” Ron shrugged off his own corduroy jacket, which looked a good bit thicker, and handed it to Harry.

“You don’t have t--”

“I know, put it on.”

\---

The sun started setting at seven, and by the time they made it back to the Litton Lane Hostel, it was completely dark, but for the lights from the buildings and street lamps. Ron didn’t say anything the whole way back, and as a result, neither did Harry. The thudding of their feet up the stairs, the snap of their door, all seemed muffled and surreal. Harry could smell Ron all over him, all over the jacket; it made him wish he still had the miracle gum that took away all taste and smell.

He could still taste him.

And when Ron went to bed, it was in his own, with his back to Harry and his arm stretched up to cushion his head. Harry sat on the edge of his own bed and thought about why he’d said no when he’d meant yes. What did he fear, who did he fear, why did he fear? When it was all over, when it had ended, why was he still waiting?

Ron had asked him what was left. Harry hadn’t had an answer for him.

“Ron.”

“What?” Ron’s voice was clear and clipped; obviously, he wasn’t sleeping either.

“I... uhm.” He fingered the little pendant, all the indentations and bumps on it carved into his memory so that even if he lost it now, he’d never forget. “I think I lied.”

“I know you did,” Ron said, rolling onto his back, arm sliding to hang over the side of the bed.

“Then why did you let me?”

“Harry, how was I gonna stop you?”

“Oh.” Two dips in the middle, a border of gold on the outside of the dinged pewter, a small stone set in its left bottom corner--

Ron was sitting up now, his hand trying to pry Harry’s fingers off his neck. “Stop it, will you?”

Harry’s fingers fell limp. Act dumb. “Stop what?”

“Fingering that fucking pendant. He’s _dead_ , Harry,” Ron spat, brow creased and voice tinged with a ferocity and anger that Harry didn’t recognize. He snapped, though, like they both knew he would, slapping Ron’s hand away. “I know he is.”

“Then let him go. He doesn’t blame you, no one does! None of the people that gave their lives blame--”

“Ron, shut it. I don’t... you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t... what? Are you mental? Harry, I was _there_. I know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Harry bit his tongue a moment, trying to swallow the fury and tears, and ignore the way his fists were balling up of their accord. “You weren’t there when he... when he died, I was the only one there.”

Ron stilled, his voice small. “I know.”

“You don’t. He... he said he was sorry he failed me. Can you believe that? How fucked up he had it?”

“You didn’t fail anyone, Harry. Neville died so you could save the world and the people he loved. I’d have done the s--”

“Don’t you fucking dare finish that sentence.”

A beat, and Ron sighed, sliding down off the starchy linen and hard mattress to kneel in front of Harry, his warm, scratchy palms on Harry’s knees. “I won’t leave. You know that. It’s over. There’s nowhere for me now but--”

“But what?”

“But with you, Harry. Fucking git, you’re all I have left to... y’know.”

 

“Your family.”

“Our family. And that’s not what I mean. I mean that... I belong here.”

“Dublin?”

Ron made something close to a growl, a frustrated, throaty noise, and cupped Harry’s face, like before, like when they’d-- “With you, prat. Wherever you are, that’s where I need to be.”

“Oh,” Harry said, like he’d known all along, and this time, they didn’t stop at the third.

\---

The sand on the beaches and shores near to Dublin wasn't white and soft like the sand found in the deeper reaches of Hogwarts’ lake. Instead, the sand was brown, black, gritty and coarse. Harry thought it felt and looked unfinished, and he liked that about it. It was as though this part of the Earth had forgotten to catch up with the rest.

It was a beautiful idea, Harry thought.

The water licked the toes of Ron’s boots and Harry’s sneakers, and Harry didn’t care that his toes were freezing from where the water had leaked in through the canvas. There was a sunset and time, and the warm hand holding his. There was a purpose now, something real to hold on to, something to build.

“When we get back,” Ron mused while they tossed smooth, flat stones into the water, “we can get jobs as Aurors, get a flat in London. Maybe we can get a little place here for holidays...”

Every “we” Ron uttered that afternoon felt like sweet, hot relief in Harry’s stomach. With each excited plan and eager thought, the knot loosened and came undone.

Harry looked at where sea met sky, where sea met rock, where rock met foot, and gently let Ron’s hand go. Crouching down away from the water, he dug a small hole, ignoring the bits of rock under his fingernails, nose wrinkling at the smell of the sand - dirt, salt and fresh. The silver chain made a tiny snap when Harry broke it off, and Ron took a step closer.

“Harry...”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“... Okay.”

He dropped the necklace with its pewter pendant, and pushed the little mound of sand back over it, patting it down with a palm before standing up. The water came in, the strained, wet little fingers of sea rolling over the spot and smoothing the handprints away.

Ron hugged him from behind, nose nuzzling into the back of Harry’s head. “Feel better?”

“Better,” Harry said.


End file.
